


You're Making Me Crazy

by twowritehands



Series: Our Souls Define Us [2]
Category: Battle Creek (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 07:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13735854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twowritehands/pseuds/twowritehands
Summary: Post soul bond, Russ and Milt bicker about their new lifestyle.





	You're Making Me Crazy

If somebody allowed the devil into their soul, that would be possession, right? That meant I was possessed by Milt. I went and let the devil win. He owned me.

“Stop being so dramatic,” Milt said.

See?

We were in his new car, headed to our first crime scene as a bonded pair. His long road to recovery had doubled as our long road to serious commitment, spiritually and physically.

I looked over at him in mild bewilderment masked by annoyance. “I have the conduit _closed_. How the hell do you know what I'm thinking?”

Milt’s lips stretched wide in a toothless grin. He glanced over at me and then smacked his lips on an inhale. “Russ, it is precisely _because_ you closed the bond that I know you are being dramatic. Whatever you were thinking, you want to hide it from me. I’ve noted you only do that so I won't know how... _poetically_ you still see the world.”

I snorted to that. Bullshit. That was.... spot on, freaking, _bullshit_. I hated how good he was. Better than me. So frustrating.

“...You pinched it shut when we passed the church.” Milt said quietly.

My face slackened at his happy little secretive tone. “It's not what you think.”

He didn't even have to send me flashes of wedding cakes and tuxedos for me to get it.

He looked sideways through long eyelashes at me. “How do you know what I'm thinking with the conduit closed?”

I clenched my teeth, holding back an impulse of rage. “I know because even with the conduit shut my brain works just fine on it's own. I know you are a giant goober who looks at churches and only thinks of the good side like baptisms and weddings.”

Milt’s face split into a big smile. “Did you just call me a _goober_?”

Heat seared up my neck. This wasn't the first time I slipped up and used a word or phrase I regretted instantly. Probably the worst part about this stupid soul bond was how my inner editor apparently didn't work the conduit. First drafts floated over to Milt without a read through, and now after so many weeks, the habit had spread to our verbal exchanges.

The only thing I could do was own it.

“Yes. Because that's _exactly_ what you are, Milt. Lame and embarrassing."

“But a goober?” He shrugged. “Just say dick.”

“No. Because I actually like dicks.”

He squinted and nodded. “But not goobers.”

“Exactly.”

Milt snickered and shook his head. _I love you, babe._

His telepathic exchange literally buzzed down my spine. I caught my breath and my skin erupted into chills. God, I loved him, too. I even let it sail away down the open conduit because swallowing that kind of feeling was nauseating. Easier to push it off.

Milt fisted the wheel with both hands as he received the empathic gift. A narcissistic smile curled his lips, but then he blinked. A little frown took over.

“So you were thinking of the bad stuff in churches… like funerals?”

I slid my eyes over to him wordlessly. I hadn’t been, but now I kind of was. Before him, I never let that stuff bother me but now--now it was just scary.

He reached over the middle console and took my hand. _I’m not going anywhere without you, Russ._

“You sound murdery when you say it like that.”

Milt chuckled. “Was that what you were contemplating or not?”

“Hey, Milt?” I began, vulnerable, to get his attention. Then my forehead smoothed out. “If I had wanted you to know about it, I would have left the conduit open.”

His face darkened. “I just wish you'd share the deep stuff with me.”

This smacked me right across the face, and my voice cracked from it. “I share--the _deepest_ stuff with you a-all the time.”

Uncontrolled, a lot of empathic gifts rolled from me into him; moved by the sheer, raw power some memories had over me. Like the first night we made love. Shy, slow, naked in his sheets with starlight, whispers, and trembles.

Physical pleasures had blended seamlessly with emotional release and we just lost control. Our walls and boundaries vanished. We fully merged. We were _one being_ with one soul.

It had been an out of body experience, and it _changed_ me. And he _knew_ that because _I shared it_. Then he had the gall to tell me I didn't share the deep stuff?

My rage and heartache hit him like another bullet. He even flinched.

Urgent buzzes from him swarmed me. Reassurances and apologies. I calmed down.

 _I am so grateful for what you give me._ Milt sent over. _But it's only one part. Only the love._ “I want you to share Russel, too. You know? The whole shebang. The good, the bad, the ugly. Please. I want it all. So far i feel as if I'm getting Hallmark cards. Written for the occasion, heartfelt, sure, but not nearly everything that can be said.”

I scrubbed my mouth and nose. This was what I had been afraid of. Following our first night together, nothing compared to that Oneness feeling. Milt wanted to be that way twenty four seven. Not me. Nuh-huh. That was over the line between sensible connection and codependent obsession, possession, and insanity.

 _Not constantly, just once in a while._ Milt bargained. I gulped.

All this emotional stuff was too much to deal with on the way to a dead body.

“You're the devil.”

“Why? Because I want a soulbond saturated with every color that our souls have to offer?”

I pulled a face. Who talked like that? I turned a little in the passenger seat and leaned closer, raised my voice slightly like he was hard of hearing.

“You are the devil,” I repeated plainly. If telling him would shut him up about it all so we could work, then whatever.”That's what I was being dramatic about. You, Milton, are probably, literally, Satan.”

“Ha!”

“Think about it, you're perfect and you can make anybody love you. Everybody believes your bullshit. I said yes to you and now you are under my skin. I'm possessed by you. The church made me think of the Exorcist.”

Milt hummed. “Technically, you're possessed by _my love_ for you.... If anything, you are possessed by an angel.”

“Satan was an angel,” I deadpanned as we pulled up to the crime scene.

Milt cut the engine. “Wait. You're really bothered, Russ. Do you… do you wish you weren't bonded to me?”

I slid my eyes over, unsure how to respond. His shoulders sagged. I touched his knee, desperate to smooth it over. “I think this is normal, though. Right? Plenty of people recoil at first. Don't they?”

Face pale and still a little slack, Milt looked out at the trees surrounding the crime scene. “I guess…”

He was disappointed and I didn't need the conduit to tell.

“You know, the whole time you were in the hospital, and then recovering at home, things were easy and fun and I thought we were the lucky ones. Like we somehow avoided all the negative drawbacks. But now that things are back to how they were before you got shot, I realized our adjustment period has only just begun.”

Milt nodded. “That makes a lot of sense, actually.”

“And, for the record, all of this is occurring to me out loud. Not everything important happens in the conduit, so don't freak out if I close it from time to time. Just want my own space for a second to polish something before you see it. Is that too much to ask?”

He smiled. “So long as you do, eventually, share it.”

I glanced around to make sure no one was looking--coast was clear--so I kissed him right on those soft, smooth lips. A long buzz rolled through me and when I opened our bond up, a lot of Milt's tender feelings scattered through me like dandelion seeds. When they cleared, I was somehow left with a stone seated in my root chakra.

According to the stupid charts he asked me to memorize, it was where basic trust radiated or whatever. Milt had just given me a rock hard promise that he trusted me, and I trusted him back.

I grinned, feeling a slightly higher chakra heat up. “What do you say to getting a little saturated later?”

Milt bit his lip. _I can't wait_.


End file.
